2009: The Year of The Dwyer's Escape From Midnight Express

The Dwyer's spent New Year's Eve at a Turkish carpet store in The Alley in Incirlik Village.   One of the local carpet guys often throws parties.  We didn't have anywhere to go on New Year's Eve so Karen did a little talking and found a party to crash.  I had told Karen I didn't want to spend New Year's Eve being pressured to buy carpets.  But it wasn't like that at all.  The owner, Nuri, had food catered and served beer.  He was very nice and never even discussed his carpets unless you asked him a question about them.  For some reason it's difficult for many of the Turk's to understand that Americans don't like pressured sales.  Nuri seems to have picked up on this long ago and it seems to pay off well for him.  I heard he sold $10,000 in carpets on New Year's Eve. 

Below: Katie models the hand made sweater Major Alicia Edward's bought her. Notice the buttons are actually Turkish "evil eyes."
Katie has removed her sweater to reveal the beautiful party dress made by her Zia Enrica Malone:

The carpets come out and people start looking:

Katie only made until about 9PM and really started to fuss.  She fell asleep on the cold walk home.  We stopped by our neighbors with the intention of seeing midnight with Katie but she woke up there and fussed util we took her home.  I think I fell asleep about 12:15 while Karen was talking to her Dad on the phone.

Dwyer's Christmas 2008

My concept of Octonodecembuary is that once you decorate for Halloween every day becomes a blur that can make Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day just seem like one quick month. Plus, I have my birthday in December, Karen has hers in January, and we have five close friends and family birthdays in there as well. So the most important thing of all is to make sure you don't let anyone rush you through it because time flies when you're having fun.

This Christmas was no exception. Katie Marie Dwyer's first Christmas ! ! ! It was hard getting prepared. We had "the incident" at the mosque in Adana that set back our decorating one entire week. And work...work has been very busy in December. With Karen having sciatic nerve problems, me not getting any time off due to base drug testing needs, and not having seen our friends and family in over 16 months - it has been tough. But it has also been one of the best Christmases ever just because of Katie. She can light up your day like....well, like a Christmas tree.

Karen and I want to thank all of our friends and family for everything they have done for us. Especially during the Christmas holidays. It was amazing how much stuff everyone sent us. I could go on for days and not have said enough about that.

I am going to just let the pictures tell our story. The first one above is Katie's first "face-to-face" with Santa Claus on Christmas eve day at the CDC. She had seen him at the tree lighting ceremony. But here she gets to really check him out and tug on his beard.

The Christmas season started with the tree lighting ceremony. The gradeschoolers put on a great performance. The video is very dark but it sounds great and you get the idea:

Below is 3am Christmas eve after Karen and I finally finshed getting the house just right:

Below: ELMO! ! ! ! Elmo does abso-frig-lutely everything. And I mean everything. He even farts and tells two minute stories. I am not kidding. Sometimes he will say, "Elmo has something to tell you. Squeeze Elmo's nose." And when you do he farts and says, "Excuse Elmo."

Below: Karen and Katie opening presents:

Below: the Grinch rears his head:

Below: A young girl after a very tiring first Christmas:

Starbucks At Incirlik Air Base

Starbucks has opened at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey!  And this is not a "We Proudly Serve..." but a full-blown Starbucks with mugs, desserts, and wifi.  In fact, I believe this is the first full-sized Starbucks in all of USAFE.  The base had been trying to get Starbucks to come in on a smaller scale but once Starbucks Turkey saw the base and the captured market, Starbucks offered to put in a full store.  I heard they paid for 100% of the construction in exchange for being able to keep all profits for the first year.  Sounds fair to me.  Thank you Starbucks!  

Karen and I love our Starbucks.  I don't care how commercialized people claim it is.  The ambiance and smell offer a comfort feeling that reminds us of home.  I'm a pop culture junkie anyway.  We spent four years at the intersection of Black Mountain and Mira Mesa in San Diego, where they literally had afour Starbucks - we miss our coffee!  We bought Starbucks thermoses that say "Turkey" on them.  They are the yellow ones onb the shelf in the photo above.  We also bought a little bear wearing a Starbucks 2008 jacket and waving a Turkiye (Turkey)  banner. We are hoping they will bring in mugs that say "Starbucks Incirlik" but we will see.  Starbucks may not want their name going on mugs with the name of a military base on it.  Incirlik is also the name of the village outside the base so it still could happen.

Below Katie is held by one of the Turkish workers on opening day:

Our Turkish Christmas Birds

Two birds have been sleeping in our vine outside our front door every night.  I have never seen anything like it.  I didn't know that birds actually get close together and snuggle.  It has been cold here - in the 30s most nights.  And our vine is just about bare at this point.  But these two birds get up there every night just after sunset and snuggle together until the morning sunrise.  When they are puffed up like in this photo they seem to be asleep or almost hibernating.  there eyes are closed and I can actually walk up to about a foot away to take a photo like this.  While we are going in and out the front door in the evening, we walk within three feet of them and they never move.

I'm not sure what type of bird they are.  Our Turkish shoeshine guy at the Medical Group, Jaf, tells me they are Nightingales.  They don't look like the Nightingales I see when I google them.  But perhaps they are some Turkish variation.  

Long Time No Post; Getting Short

It's actually been more than a month. Wow. I'm telling ya - Octonodecembuary is in full swing. We haven't had time to blink since October got here. We just put the Halloween stuff away today. And we are getting short. We should be home about nine months from now. When Octonodecembuary rolls is over we will essentially only have 5 months left and we will be shipping our stuff 3-4 months after Octonodecembuary is over.

I am going to try to start coming by the library one night per week to blog so hopefully I will catch up soon. A quick summary of events: I gave my last guitar lesson a week ago, I am still the base drug tester with no end in site, my Mental Health Flight won the paintball championship yesterday, we had a nice Halloween night giving out candy (Katie slept through the whole thing), and Katie will be 4 months on November 15th. Some recent photos:

Below, our house on Halloween. That's Karen's boss, Rada Ford on the left and a prop on the right...or is that Rad on the right? No Rada is on the left:

Below, Karen and Katie in the living room just prior to Halloween:

Below, the hedgehog that seems to be coming through our back yard every night. So far Slinky seems to know to stay away. That black dot is his nose and the smaller black dot just up and to the right of his nose is his eye:

"Little ghost, little ghost, your the cat I love the most." Some of our Halloween decorations sat out on the patio until today when we had time to put them away. last night was a little cool so Slinky warmed up to the skeleton bride below:

The Fence Is Down

I know we posted before that we are enjoying the fence being down. Just wanted to post a few more photos. Below Slinky is amazed to see there is a whole other world on the other side of the fence. This is the first time he was ever able to see past the fence much less walk out the back gate. Remember, we had a five foot tarp around the whole fence.

Another shot of our banana tree. Actually, it's our neighbor's banana tree but this year it has grown so much we have one stalk that has sprouted up on our side of the fence. We have a smaller one on the other side of the yard as well. This tree below is over two stories tall:

Now that Karen's back to work and things have fallen into a routine, we have found time to venture back in the alley. Below is Katie's first trip to a bar. We went to The Turkish Turtle to have their famous chicken sandwich. They were excellent! Below is a shot of Karen and I over by the grafitti wall.

There is a good shot of Katie in the bar that I will post on her site at adayinthelifeofkatiedwyer.blogspot.com

Well Piss On All Ya!

That's right, I am now the official Incirlik Air Base Drug Testing Program Administrator. That means I am the sole urinalysis tester. For all practical purposes I am actually the Program Manager as well. On paper, the Program Manager is our new OIC but since I am the only one actually in the office doing the testing and coordination I would say I am doing both jobs. So I am now the NCOIC of the Mental Health Flight, the base DTPAM, and also perform the Demand Reduction Program Manager duties. I was crunching numbers the other day and I calculated our Mental Health staff has shrunk by 42% since I first arrived. Since July of 2007 we lost our Family Advocacy Outreach Manager, our New Parent Support Program Nurse, our DoDs school alcohol and drug counselor, our child psychologist, our Demand Reduction Program Manager, and one mental health technician. Now I will get a tech back in June of 09 and we did regain a new Child psychologist, but I also see the potential of loosing two more positions so a 42% reduction hurts hard.

So when Karen and I are at home I try as hard as I can to forget about all the work stuff. We have been busy trying to get our back yard looking nice. Here is Katie and Karen in the back before dinner. Don't let the banana tree fool you. There's something about a banana tree that can make everything look like paradise. Trust me it's another world beyond that fence. but that's the whole idea. A paradise backyard. It's a little blurry but I was trying to get far enough away to capture the effect of the whole yard:

Karen has started back to work at NAF and Katie is at the CDC. Karen actually was moved to the corner office of Building 833. Well, she had the corner office and now she has the one next to it - but they are both NAF offices. Normally, the Air Force sticks NAF in a really crappy location so Karen and her boss, Rada, are happy to have one of the best views from the building. It's actually a commander's office that somehow went vacant.

Katie is thriving at the CDC. All the ladies love her and she is always busy. They actually had her make an art project last week. hopefully, I can get a picture of that soon. If you want pictures of Katie, you should know where to go for that. If not - just ask.

Slinky is busy doing his best to help out with his little sister. Here, he inspects Katie's new exosaucer:

I finished my 30 education units to recertify my alcohol and drug counseling certification. Now it's time to take the 6 unit CLEP before Christmas. Octonodecembuary is almost here!

Dwyer's Are Back in Turkey

I'll tell the story later. A few pics for now:

Just an hour or so after birth. NICU has placed a bow in Katie's hair and tried to make her comfortable as possible:

First day out of hospital...and first smile! Great to see - gas or not:

First pediatric appointment. "I am really bored and don't want to be here." Just prior to this shot Katie had tried to lift her head and look at Karen. This caused her to look like she was rolling her eyes and then she fell into her favorite contemplative position:

Our flight home from Germany was diverted in mid-air due to an in-flight emergency. They landed at the former Hahn Air Base and we had to sit in a SMALL terminal for 6-8 hours. Karen and Kattie trying to get some sleep on the floor:

"Finally, back home and in my brand new crib!"

Kitty and Katie get along just fine. We never leave them alone and always supervise interactions just to be sure:

Taken today:

Katie Marie Dwyer

No words needed - "just pure joy" Karen says. Stay tuned for the director's cut.

Dwyer Pictures From Germany

Karen on The Rhine River.

















Karen at the castle overlooking Landstuhl.














Drinking a meter of beer at the Kaieserslautern street festival with our Storknesting sponsors, Robin and Andy - no Karen did not drink.











Eating authentic German food in a small village near Vogelway.

Where Are the Pregnant Karen Pictures?

OK whoever asked this hasn't been reading the blog very thoroughly. The only computers we have access to are government computers and they do not allow downloading. Unfortunately, it may be a while before anyone sees pregnant Karen pictures. We will get them up as soon as we are able. And also, we have very limited telephone access - if you don't hear from us it's not because we aren't thinking about you. We miss everyone! Happy 4th of July ! ! ! !

Mama Took My Kodachrome Away

Our digital camera took a crap! It seems to still function and a flash goes off when you push the button, but there are no images displayed on the screen - it just remains white no matter what button you push or setting you move it to. We are trying to get a replacement but will have to wait for the end of March and order on-line. All the cameras for sale on base are around $300. Walmart, Target, and some others have much better on-line offers. We will probably borrow one for Karen's shower on April 4th. Then should have a new one fairly soon after.

We bought paint for Katie's nursery yesterday. Karen picked out a soft, lime green. Kind of the color of the water along the Emerald Coast in Florida. Hopefully, we will paint next week. We bought the paint at a store in the mall called The Praktiker. We got around Adana fairly well. We found the mall on our own for the first time, then we went to McDonald's which is only about ten minutes from the mall but took us over an hour. I wasn't sure how to cut across town to get to McDonald's so I wanted to come back the base and take the road I was sure of. But we missed the base turn-off and ended up another 30 miles down the road before we could get turned around. I think the freeway sign said Ceyhan was only 19 miles from where we turned around. There are very few places to turn around on the freeway in Turkey. We finally figured out that every 5 miles or so there will be an opening in the left side guard rail. But even with that only 1 out of every 5 of those is actually open and the others are sealed shut. Then we missed a right side turn off. Finally caught a left-side guard rail opening as we approached Ceyhan - and then went all the way back to McDonald's in New Adana. McDonald's never tasted so good. It was packed. They had full upstairs seating and downstairs plus about 50 tables outside on a grass lawn that were full. The Turks love the McDonald's - at least in Adana they do.

Also put the Master Sergeant stripe on officially on March 1st.

One More Photo From Christmas

I wanted to put this one last photo up before I run out of time. This is most of the 39th medical group Mental health Flight on Christmas Eve at the Dwyer's House. Across the front from left to right, you have: Daniel Williams, Dallas Williams (complete with Home Alone pose), me (Patrick Dwyer), Melissa Thompson, and Cameron Thompson. In the back: Keisha Henry, Emily Thompson, Quinlan Creech, Seanna Creech, Seanna's friend, Casey Creech, Karen Dwyer, Joe Thompson (in gray sweat shirt), Wes Williams, Dasha Williams, Angela Williams, and Alicia Edwards.

So, it looks like we will be able to get more pics onto out Picasa site slowly. But I need help. If anyone knows how to reduce the file size of pics, please let me know. each one of mine is 1-2 MB! I know there is a way to get them smaller. I just don't know how.

Karen and I may be able to find out the sex of the baby on January 29th!

See if you can see the photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/patrickjamesdwyer I did get a few in of our trip to Mersin last week. Check out the picture of the Turkish toilet (they are just holes in the ground).

PICTURES FROM TURKEY ! ! !

PICTURES! PICTURES! PICTURES! Everyone keeps asking for pictures. Here they are. I finally have put some stuff on a zip drive so I can put a bunch of stuff up. Pay close attention to the end of this post for important info on pictures. The following our in chronological order since our departure from San Diego for Turkey:

To the left. A terrified Slinky hanging in there. I believe this was taken in Los Angeles because I am still using the soft carrier the Air force wouldn't let us use.

When we were finally able to move into Incirlik housing, we still didn't have any of our possessions. Slinky was still a little freaked out about the whole thing. Damn cat kept crawling up inside the bed! We're lucky they didn't charge us as this is part of the "stick furniture" they lend you.

Slinky decided to immerse himself in things that smelled like "our stuff."

Karen with some people from the Med group shopping in Kahramanmaras during our Mt. Nemrut trip. We call it "K-town" and it is famous for its ice cream. Notice how the man on the left is staring. The locals are fascinated by black people and blond hair. We really stood out.

Also, during the Mt. Nemrut trip. We spent the night in Kahta before ascending Nemrut. These kids were playing right under our hotel window. Once they saw I had a camera they wanted to pose. Extremely friendly.

At the top of Mt. Nemrut. this was very early, right after sunrise. The pictures that follow will give you an idea for how high up we are.

We had already been descending for quite a while at this point. Then the road turned to dirt...with no guard rails. Then we came around a corner in our little bus and saw this. It was so scary all we could do was laugh - the guy behind us kept yelling at the driver, "Yavash ! Yavash !" That's Turkish for "slow." Karen was belly-roll laughing You can see the dirt road we we are on down below. The following shot is several more miles down this road after we descended a few thousand feet.

Here we are several thousand feet down. We are actually walking on a trail at this point. That's a tributary to the Euphrates below. See below for explanation of where we are.

I love this picture of Karen at Park Zirve. This was taken during a Ramadon Iftar. Those are Whirling Dervishes behind Karen. I had the Karen set for a slower speed so it couldn't actually keep up with the Dervishes. But the lights and the blur really made the picture.

This is in Adana. That's Karen and my buddy coworker Joe Thompson. We are up on the roof of an apartment Joe is watching for one of our docs that returned to San Francisco to go to school for a year. I think you call the lake Seyhan. This is in the nice area of Adana just down the street from Park Zirve.

Inside the apartment. Does Karen look beautiful or what?

OK, I was hoping to get a bunch of photos into either Picasa (which is part of my Google/g-mail account) or into Photobucket. it was a little more complicated than I thought as the library won't let me install Picasa. So I may get around to it soon. I have figured out that the photos I post on here are viewable at http://picasaweb.google.com/patrickjamesdwyer . But, if I don't post them in a blog there doesn't seem to be a way to add them unless i have the software and the library does not. Stay tuned.